Former President Jimmy Carter Says His "Heart Goes Out to" Paula Deen

Here's some very unexpected news to end your Friday with: In a new interview with CNN, former president Jimmy Carter revealed that disgraced celebrity chef Paula Deen is actually his good friend, and she reached out to him after the racism scandal seeking advice.

Carter and Deen apparently grew up 40 miles apart in rural Georgia neighborhoods around the same time period. According to Carter, he "advised her to let the dust settle and to make apologies"—and that his "heart goes out to her, but of course there’s no condoning the use of a word that abuses other people."

In his words:

"...she has some very beneficial human programs in Savannah, Georgia, where she lives, that benefit, almost exclusively, oppressed and poverty-stricken black people, African-American citizens in her own community. And I advised her to get some of those people who she’s helping every day to speak out and show that she has changed in her relationship with African-American people, with minorities, in the last number of years."

Since the scandal involving Deen and her past usage of racial slurs broke, she's been dropped from Food Network, and fired from a handful of lucrative business deals such as Walmart, Caesar's Entertainment, Target, and Home Depot.